1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to peripheral devices, and more particularly to peripheral device control systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to recent upgrading of network infrastructure, network-compatible peripheral devices, such as printers, copying machines, facsimile machines, scanners, digital cameras, and image processing apparatuses including a composite function of such elements, are coming into widespread use.
To operate such network-compatible peripheral devices, such as network-compatible printers, the following procedure is taken. A user first manually installs driver software (printer driver) which is registered and managed on a database into an information processing apparatus (client personal computer (client PC)) by using an operating system (hereinafter referred to as an “OS”) running on the client PC. Alternatively, the user installs a printer driver, provided by a printer vendor, stored on a recording medium, such as a flexible disk or a compact disc read only memory (CD-ROM). The client PC then sets information for operating the printer, such as an Internet protocol (IP) address assigned to the printer, a printer port, a print protocol, and a device driver. For setting such information, various presentation pages (user interfaces (UIs)) for inputting the information are stored in predetermined network storage locations indicated by Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). The client PC sets the information by accessing such various presentation pages. In this system, print commands can be given to the printer from a corresponding application running on the client PC.
To operate a local-connection dedicated printer, which is not compatible with a network, such printer is connected to a server consisting of a PC, for example, which is connected to a network. With this arrangement, when viewing the printer from the network via the server, the printer can be operated as a network-compatible printer. A printer operation is performed by this printer according to print commands given from a client PC on the network. Services for providing such a printing method include Net Crawl Service of Microsoft Windows XP (registered, hereinafter referred to as “Windows XP”). With this Net Crawl Service, in a system including a server with Windows XP, a client PC with Windows XP, and a printer connected to this server located on the same network, a printer driver can be automatically installed into the client PC. Then, the user is able to perform a printing operation by using the printer based on print commands given from the client PC without the need to manually install a printer driver or perform special settings. As in the previous system including a network-compatible printer, print commands can be given to the printer from a corresponding application running on the client PC.
Along with the widespread use of network-compatible peripheral devices, techniques for searching via a network for peripheral devices providing various services on the network and for controlling such peripheral devices by an information processing apparatus (client PC) are being developed. Such techniques include Universal Plug and Play (hereinafter sometimes referred to as “UPnP”™) provided by Microsoft Corporation, which is now standardized by the UPnP Forum (http://www.upnp.org/).